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PeopleSoft Inc. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President Craig Conway was shown the door on Friday by the company’s board of directors, who immediately replaced him with Dave Duffield, PeopleSoft’s founder and chairman.

Conway’s dismissal was due to a “loss of confidence” in the CEO’s ability to lead PeopleSoft, the Pleasanton, Calif. company said in a statement. Duffield plans to focus his efforts as PeopleSoft CEO on “technology innovation, a relentless commitment to our customers, and a renewed drive to keep PeopleSoft a great place to work for all employees,” he was quoted as saying in the statement.

The board of directors also appointed Kevin Parker and Phil Wilmington as co-presidents and Aneel Bhusri as vice-chairman of the board.

Conway has been embroiled for the past 15 months in Oracle Corp.’s hostile bid for the company through an all-cash tender offer to PeopleSoft’s shareholders, now valued at US$7.7 billion.

In July, Conway blamed PeopleSoft’s sagging profits on the struggle with Oracle. The enterprise software maker was unable to make its own reduced revenue targets in the second quarter, and posted a year-over-year net income drop of 70 per cent, from US$36.5 million to US$11 million.